Hey Moon, Don't You Go Down (Lee)

[Kila]

Nadya sat at the edge of the ocean, pale moon shining on her
pale face. The sea lapped at her toes, tame tonight with no wind to urge
it forward. She paid it no mind, however; her eyes were fixed on the
stars. As a girl she had had to seek a break in the trees to see the
night sky, and in Eastern Weyr there had been looming forests as well,
but in Dalibor there was nothing obstruct her view. By day she was safe
and surrounded by the earth pressing in around, but by night she was
free, emancipated by all the dark opportunity of the night. She closed
her eyes and let the moon shine down on her as others would do with the
sun, a ghost of a smile on her face.

Nadysk was tromping up and down the beach, too much conditioned by the
place to resist. This was where they patrolled- part of the area
anyways. The habit was in him so he made his rounds even though there
would be others doing it in his place. They did not have patrol duty
that night, but it couldn't hurt. Besides, he wanted to make sure the
area was safe for His and her hatchling. They were his responsibility
after all.

Unlike his mother and her lifemate, Aydan shared no such deep thoughts.
The five turn old child was up to his belly in the water, splashing
about and playing with Shardit and Bug.
Ffffffrrrrrrr! The Brass protested whenever Aydan
looked like he was going out too far, Srrrrrrrr,
Bug would agree and push him back closer to shore. After a while it
became a game to Aydan and he would dash farther out so his pillies
would push him in again. He loved being in the water.

Nadya saw his shorts floating by on the tide and hooked them lazily with
her toe, flinging them onto the sand. He had taken them off almost as
soon as he had gotten in, not liking the constricting feeling of clothes
when he was swimming. I guess he is my son after all, she
thought, the smile flickering again across her face. Clothes had never
really been her thing; she enjoyed them much more when they were on the
floor. Far be it from her to try to reclothe him when she would have
done the same. A naked dip was tempting, but she preferred the warm
pools beneath the Weyr to the ocean still cold from winter.

[lee]

If the riders at Dalibor Weyr were diurnal, and the wherhandlers nocturnal, then dual candidates, by necessity, were stuck being somewhat crepuscular. Students of each, their place was straddling day and night or taking shifts of each according to when lessons were. It wasn’t exactly conducive for getting a lot of rest, but Braele didn’t really mind the exhaustion—it kept her mind too tired to go down bothersome tracks. Besides, her internal timing had been off for years as a result of all the time spent in sun-starved mines deep underground. For now, she was on the night shift, with just enough time to herself for a run before, maybe, getting some sleep at last.

Her steps, in an even pace, led her down the beach, and though she disliked the sensation of the sand squelching beneath her feet, caving and giving rather than staying firm, she persisted. With nothing else to occupy her mind, she ran through her candidate lessons, though at this point she had been such for nearly a turn, and there wasn't much left she wasn't confident about.

Well, except for the Impressing part.

And, for her transition to dual had been somewhat recent, whers.

Which was why, when she spotted the tromping brown wher in front of her, she stopped, blinking at him in a moment of blank confusion as she tried to figure out if she was just so tired that she had hallucinated the track of her thoughts, or of there really was a wher right there. There was. Unobtrusively as she could, Braele, hands on her knees and panting as the exertion of her jog caught up with her, glanced through her lashes to see if, you know, there was a handler nearby. She didn't particularly care to be mauled by a wild brown on the best of days, and her knowledge of them was rather limited to the pair at the mining hold she had apprenticed at, both green and a bit gray with age, and not nearly the size of this fellow. Plus, they'd both been firmly attached to their handlers. She glanced to the ocean with a resigned sigh.

Could whers swim?

She could see a figure a bit down the beach, but squinting, couldn't see if she--he? Gracious it was dark, even with the moon--wore anything to mark her (him?) as a handler. She straightened, as much to ready herself to sprint in the other direction if need be, and figured announcing herself was better than being discovered, and, with the utter eloquence she was known for, addressed the wher with her hands in front of her (partly a gesture of peace, mostly for protection), "Er. Hello?"

[Kila]

Spring, 6th Turn, 11th Pass

Nadysk heard Braele before she spotted him. Everything she did betrayed
her, though through no fault of her own. He felt her footsteps resound
against the earth; he heard her heavy breathing in the darkness; he
smelled her scent in the air. Braele had to squint just to see through
the darkness, but Nadysk was made for the night. The Brown did
not stop his pacing, but his patrol path transformed into a battle line-
a barrier that he would keep between His and any potential danger. He
watched her from the corner of his eyes, glowing bright as the moon, as
he stalked down the beach. When she stopped he slowed, slowly closing
the distance between them.

Nadysk growled when she blundered towards him, an awkward greeting on
her lips. He could sense the caution (easily mistaken for fear) in her,
and gave her credit at least to have the sense for that. Many Candidates
were brave and brainless, putting themselves into all kinds of dangerous
situations. Nadya particularly disliked them for this reason. Not only
could she not touch them, but they had a tendency to make a great stupid
mess of things.

The Handler tipped her head back lazily when she head her bonded growl.
"What is it, Nadysk?" she called in a half-interested tone,
wondering what could have upset her love so much out here where they
were all alone. Not alone, he corrected her,
closing in on Braele. When they were close enough to touch he sniffed
her, sizing her up. Nadya rolled her eyes, annoyed that someone had
found a way to trespass on her quiet night. Scare her away or
something. I'm not in the mood for company. Never in
mood, he quipped. Not unless they're in my bed. she
agreed. But her Wher was kinder than she was- a trait inherent to his
color. The only person he had ever attacked was Q'sis, but he had
deserved that and more. So, giving Braele one last sniff, he continued
his dutiful trek down the beach, hoping that the random girl would leave
His alone and go back to the Weyr where she had come from.

[lee]

So. Braele considered to herself. Where did they go from here? She supposed, given her generally more-than-adequate stamina, that she could stand here for several more candlemarks, staring at the spiny dragonkin for as long as he cared to stare back at her, but it didn't exactly seem like the most productive way to spend either of their time. All things considered though, she wasn't about to make the first move, so she held to herself as she was approached. If it was fear, it was the ever-muted sort that Braele was prone to. She rarely felt anything strongly enough to acknowledge it overmuch. But caution was cerebral, and she tended to pay more attention to things she could put reason and logic to. A call reached her ears and she squinted back to the figure on the beach and decided she (he? It?) must be a handler after all. She ran through the list she had memorized and summoned up four names, but in the hazy night light was unable to ascribe any one to the wher and handler with certainty.

She was sniffed—whuffled? The action had a distinct sense of whuffling to it—and held quite still and wary, though the action reminded her of a canine and eased her mind a bit. She didn't think wild whers went around sniffing before chomping...unless this one had a particularly advanced palette, and preferred to sample the aromas first. She didn't think so, but was nevertheless careful to keep her more easily detached appendages in places she could keep an eye on. She got no other response, but wasn't entirely expecting one. Ausk's was the only wher mindvoice that had spoken to her, and she hadn't gotten the sense the red was exactly a warm, cuddly chatterbox. Perhaps it was presumptuous of her, but she'd rather extrapolated that whers, in general, weren't.

She didn't hold her breath—who knew if she'd need it to run or not—but she did sigh in something like relief as Nadysk apparently deemed her uninteresting (unappetizing?) enough to live.

Then, being the least curious person to ever live on or in the entire planet, history, and expanse of Pern, she did exactly as he'd hoped, and turned to jog back to the Weyr rather than disturb the handler and wher further.

It might have ended there, except for an expedient spiderclaw who, minding his own business in his burrow, was immensely displeased to see a boot sink into the hollow sand where his burrow had been hollowed out. Braele, in her jog, felt her ankle twist under her as the sand caved and she rolled and landed on her back but the damage was done. Cursing a colorful stream of language that would have caused a sailor to blush (miners, as a whole, were much more creative in both positions and descriptions to be applied to animate and inanimate objects alike), Braele scowled at the hole that had felled her and tried to stand up. She heard something crack, and managed to fall this time rather more properly, slapping forearms on the sand to absorb the shock, and grumbling again at the joint that had failed. It ached like a cracked head and she grit her teeth and glanced around for a bit of driftwood to possibly help her up, but there was none within reach.

But maybe...she rolled up best she could to see if the wher was still in range. She'd compared him to a canine, hadn't she ? Maybe—and the thought was just sacrilegious enough to elicit a bemused snort—he could fetch.

"I hate sand."

[/blockquote]

[Kila]

Nadysk was alerted to Braele's predicament by the sickening
crunch her ankle made when it sunk and twisted in the sand. The Brown
Wher growled in frustration. It had been going so well- the girl had
actually been leaving and had not had the bad judgment to bother His.
The following string of impressive curses let Nadya know that something
was amiss. Wow, she thought, admiring the fiery words and the
crude grace with which Braele strung them together. She turned and
peered up the bank, her night eyes nearly as good as Nadysk's. The
situation was not hard to piece together. What did she do? she
asked her Wher. Nadysk grudgingly abandoned his patrol and padded back
over to Braele. He sniffed her again (indeed making a whuffling sound as
the air left his nostrils) and examined her. Leg in hole.
Fell down. Broken? The Brown was no healer, but he was on the
right track.

Isee. Nadya pondered. She should take the girl to the
healers immediately... but she had no intention of leaving the ocean
yet. Perhaps when the pair of Handlers that were on patrol came by she
could pawn the broken Candidate off on them. Nadya like that idea very
much. Bring her over here, Nadysk, she requested, surprising her
lifemate pleasantly. He complied before she could change her mind. The
Brown sidled up beside Braele and then lowered himself to the ground.
Climb on, he commanded, finally speaking to her. If
she could use her arms to do the hoisting then she wouldn't have to put
any weight on her leg at all. Once she had struggled up he rose, bearing
her weight easily, and delivered her to Nadya, being careful not to
jostle her.

"That was a mighty string of curses," the Handler said
appreciatively when Nadysk crouched down to let Braele off. Her eyes
went to her ankle, which was beginning to swell. "How bad is it?"
she asked, nodding to the wound. A sprained ankle would not hurt so
terribly if she didn't put any weight on it and would heal quickly. If
it was broken (a distinction which Nadysk failed to grasp), it would be
hurting badly even when she was off of it. It didn't make much of a
difference to Nadya, but if it was only sprained then the wait to hand
her off would significantly more enjoyable.

[lee]

Ouch.

Ouch.

Braele was blinking back unshed tears when a snort of hot air brushed over her and she peered forward with brown eyes to meet iridescent ones. He had come back! She spared a moment to feel fleetingly guilty about the mental fetch comment and instead tried to figure out what to do or say now that the had in fact returned. She was opening her mouth to ask if he could be so kind as to bring a bit of driftwood over when the rough hide brushed up against hers and the brown lowered. Surprised, she nevertheless moved quickly (or as quickly as she could) to respond the solid mental command, gingerly shifting herself and struggling to comply. The process was not without slight jarring, and she hissed but swallowed it to instead offer a "Thank you." that was rough with pain.

Well good gravy. Now what did she say? 'Nice wings, hope I'm not cramping them?' 'Sorry about the weight, you know me and bubbly pies?' 'You're a very nice wher' sounded inane even to her, so Braele settled for placid silence and tried to remember what she had learned from the scant lessons on runners she'd received at the Mining Hall about shifting weight, and hoped the steady brown wouldn't find her silence rude. Mostly in her lessons she had simply followed around the handlers. There had been little direct conversation or interaction with the whers themselves. Clearly, Braele thought with a resigned sigh, she needed some lessons on wher etiquette, if she was struggling so much. She supposed she must not be doing too terrible a job, as the wher and his handler had not left her to belly crawl her way back to the Weyr, and she had not become a beachside snack either, though she suspected the latter had more to do with the fact she seemed to have lucked into meeting a wher in possession of a rather steady sort of personality rather more than some hitherto undisplayed talent for wher-whispering on Braele's part. She settled on thinking very positive thoughts about whers. Very positive. Marvelous whers. Wonderful whers. Her gratitude for the gentle trip—for she had noticed how carefully the brown took his steps—embarrassed her a bit, but further enforced her very solid appreciation for him. Fantastic wher.

As they approached, Braele recognized through the haze of the ache the face that greeted her as one that had been pointed out to her in lessons. "Pridesecond Nadya," She spoke as greeting, voice a bit less hoarse but abrupt as she was wont to be. "I, uh—" She was going to say thank you, but the handsome woman commented on her use of colorful language, and Braele was forced to pause, licking her lips in thought as she tried to interpret the other woman's tone. She hadn't sounded displeased about the display. Without blushing, Braele inclined her head and gently lowered herself off of the brown wher, biting back another of those very curses to say, "The situation called fer 'em." Addressing the wher she could now identity with certainty, Braele, once again not sure what to do with her hands, again held them in a sort of palm-up offering of thanks. "Thank you for the lift, Nadysk." She turned back to the handler, wincing and quickly blinking to again stop tears, a feat she managed but barely, and then grimaced at her foot with an expression that was brutally businesslike. With a quick breath, the tall girl lowered hands to poke briskly and thoroughly around and at the purple skin, a muffled, "Mmph" escaping as she bit her lip around a sound of distress, "Hurts less'n a broken arm, more'n a pulled muscle. S'pose it's sprained, it feels like the bones ain't broke..." Glancing back up, embarrassed at the fact she was bothering the woman, Braele's eyes finally adjusted enough to see the boy splashing in the water.

Alarmed—because her colorful language suddenly had a more impressionable audience— Braele weighed whether or not to apologize after all, and decided she would do so if called out but not otherwise. Still, she felt like she ought to acknowledge that she was not, in fact, blind, and that she was interrupting time that was clearly personal. "M'apologies, fer intrudin' on ya and yer—" About to say son, because it seemed like a logical choice, given the hour and lack of other people, but Braele, mindful of how her mother always hated the assumption (she complained it made her feel old), quickly amended and finished with, "—him?"

[Kila]

Nadysk stayed perfectly still as Braele lowered herself gingerly off his back. Though the girl did not complain, he could feel her pain and hear the second string of curses left unsaid. He snorted, sending another warm wave of air over her, and nudged her extended palm with his big, ugly head when she thanked him. You welcome. He stared down at her ankle, eyes whirring in the darkness. Nadya could feel the concern welling up in him- an inevitable kindness that came along with his color. She rolled her eyes in exasperation. She's fine, Nadysk, don't start your mother henning. Can't I just abandon someone in peace every now and then? The Brown made a disapproving sound. No abandon. Go wait for Impask and Lauriesk. If the other Whers on his patrol did not come soon he would take Braele to the infirmary himself, he decided. Turning his back on the two women he stomped off down the beach to look for his brother and sister.

Nadya let her lifemate go, knowing that his stubbornness rivaled her own. She watched with a small frown as Braele touched her ankle and recoiled. Shallow as ever, she took the time that the girl spent examining her hurts to look her over. Braele was tall and solid- Nadya could tell that even while she was sitting down. There weren't any curves to her, but she could see plenty of muscle. A smith or a miner, this one, she judged, knowing the correlation between the crafts. Her jaw and brow were strong as well, matching her almost manly face to her manly body. She had pretty eyes though, with long feminine lashes that stood out from all her other features. Those and the fact that she wasn't shrieking like a mewling babe were probably the most attractive things about her.

It wasn't a good report that Braele gave, but not a bad one either. "If it was broken you would know it," Nadya said, having experienced broken bones herself while growing up. She glanced down at the ankle. "Looks painful enough, but wrap it up and keep off of it for a few sevendays and you'll be fine. Maybe it'll even get you out of doing chores," she said, grinning. It was careless and irresponsible for her to assume a diagnosis, but she had been living at Dalibor for turns now doing just that. She was more knowledgeable, experienced, and senior to most of the other Handlers, but it was a miracle she had not been demoted for her blazé behavior. The Alpha and Beta leaders saw what she could bring to the table it seemed, and it didn't hurt that she had been to bed with them.

Braele's bashful apology trailed off when she spotted Aydan in the water. Shardit had begun to hiss and quiver when Nadysk deposited her on the shore, immediately hostile against the stranger that had moved into the proximity of his ward. Following the Brass's view, Aydan turned to look at the girl sitting next to his mother. His smile dropped and he stared at her silently, his eerily perceptive eyes piercing her body and examining her very soul. He was an unsettling child; it was not hard to see why people stayed away from him. Seeing that she had neither Wher nor pets however, Aydan's interest waned quickly and he went back to his games, grabbing the bubbling Brass so that he would stop frothing at the shore and keep playing. SssssRrrrrRRR! he protested, nevertheless halting his preemptive attack.

[lee]

Nadysk's head may not have been the most attractive of craniums-and Braele was not prone to sympathetic lies about such things-but when it nudged her palm there was something immensely endearing about it and something warm spread from the contact to her stomach and were she a more expressive sort she might have cooed. Since she wasn't, she only smiled, a small and vaguely awkward expression, and resisted the urge to stroke, instead letting her fingers curl in welcome before he pulled away and they dropped. Not being all that objectively attractive herself, Braele appreciated these sorts of things. She watched him go, stomping back off with a resoluteness that made her want to salute, and decided that she rather thought he did look handsome, in his own way, like the guards who stood around the Masterminer Hold, a bit scraggly perhaps, but valorous in a way that was not assuming. She made a noncommittal sound at Nadya's assessment, and it may have been agreement or simply acknowledgement. After a moment or two, she spoke, in seemingly no rush to do so, "Nadysk is very kind." She murmured. "And I seem to find myself in his debt." She smiled, wry, quick and perhaps almost a bit wickedly, though if it had been it was folded back into her more mild of expressions shortly. "Yours as well. Is there something I can do as thanks?" Because there wasn't much she could do to ease her ankle while she waited, Braele frowned at and then rolled her neck, which cracked, followed by her spine, elbows, wrists, and fingers, in a quick series of rolling, snapping pops that satisfied the need to get things back into place. It was psychosomatic, she knew, and so she resisted rolling her feet in a finale of the movement, because the sense of displacement was not one that would be eased with a cracking of the joint, for all that it felt like it could. With as mild an expression as she could manage—and given her stony features, that was very—Braele deadpanned in a purposeful echo, "Except chores. I'm injured, you know. Can't be doing too many of those." she would, of course, if asked, and she meant it in jest as it did not occur to her that Nadya's casual remark had been meant seriously.

Braele, as she was prone to doing, went silent for awhile as she was studiously evaluated and subsequently dismissed by the cool eyes of the little in the waves. The seriousness amused her more than unnerved her, for she assumed it simply to be a reflection of her strangeness, intruding upon what she still suspected was a family outing. Her eyes stayed on the waves as she contemplated the possibilities of how to proceed. She wasn't uncomfortable with silence, and certainly wasn't someone who felt the need to fill it with chatter or her thoughts turned aloud. Better to take her time about it and get it right. Unless, of course, after contemplation she could not arrive at an answer, in which case it was always best to seek consultation. So after few moments of serious thought, Braele spoke up again. "Pridesecond, I'm not certain what the protocol for this is. Would you prefer silence? Or would should 1 attempt to demonstrate wher candidacy suitability by seizing the opportunity to express curiosity about the life of a handler?" She blinked blandly, seemingly unaware that asking the question itself rather defeated the intended goal if it had been such. She was not, as noted, particularly curious, though she did deem it prudent to have a thorough understanding of a life she had at least the potential to lead. She blinked once more, unaware or uncaring that the placid expression made her rather resemble the slow-minded herdbeasts even now being kept quarantined and carefully watched. "I'm amenable to either."

[/blockquote]

[Kila]

"Exceedingly kind," Nadya agreed dryly. Her better half
kept her out of trouble but often spoiled her fun. Still, she wouldn't
change a thing about Nadysk if given the chance. She waved away the idea
of debt but was caught by surprise at Braele's fleeting wicked smile.
She paused, hand still in the air in mid-dismissal, and wondered if she
actually would like something from the strange candidate before her.
When Braele followed up to except chores from the offer Nadya grinned,
letting her previous thoughts drift away. Mostly. She had been lucky not
to have been caught fooling around with candidates before. Those
standing for dragons that were kept tucked away near the surface were
one thing, but the Wher candidates that stayed below and mixed with the
Handlers were another. She didn't want to end up like Ridan- he had
taken too big of a risk. "Except chores," she agreed as solemnly
as possible. "Cripples have to rest."

Nadya sat comfortably in the silence that followed, quite enjoying her
surprise guest's unobtrusive company. Apart from Aydan there weren't
many people she could tote around that could entertain themselves
without talking her ear off. Nadya was not a patient woman and she had
been known to simply get up and walk away from idle chatter. Mouths were
better for kissing than for blabbering in her opinion. It was beyond her
why people felt the need to fill perfectly good silence. In that way at
least her bastard son had turned into a better companion than she could
have ever dreamed.

Braele stayed quiet long enough that she was still in Nadya's good
graces when she spoke again. The BrownHandler considered her question
silently, rather surprised by the clever wording of it. Braele looked
about as intelligent as a wherry, especially when waiting for an answer
as she was just then, but Nadya could tell that she was a lot quicker
than she appeared. And why not? Nadya herself was a whole hell of a lot
more clever than she allowed people to think. She excelled in more than
just talking people out of their smallclothes and had an inkling that
Braele had some hidden talents of her own.

"I don't believe there is much of a protocol for a crabby Handler and
her rescued damsel in distress lounging on the beach after
midnight," Nadya mused. "I am quite partial to silence but since
you are indeed my damsel in distress I think we could have that
conversation," she purred. "If you are indeed interested. Your
nocturnal dexterity is not helping your cause, but expressing interest
might just even it out." Nadya raised an eyebrow, not quite mocking.
"I am amenable to either."

[lee]

Braele noted Nadya's dry tone, but didn't wonder at it. What did she know about the bonds between such as she and the brown dragonkin stomping off back on patrol? It was downright silly to make a judgement on something she had as little knowledge on as...as an apprentice at their first lesson. Oh it was a fine thing to study a hammer, but it was a far cry from how your muscles sang the first time you swung it! She recognized this difference without envy. In fact, it wouldn't occur to her to be envious. Braele was rather incapable of imagining anything, let alone someone else's life or circumstances for her own.

Without noticing the woman's pause, Braele's smile faded back into her more blandly pleasant expression, and her eyes closed in thought. It didn't occur to Braele to wonder at the other woman's thoughts during their shared silence, though she might have been pleasantly amused had she known of them. It was surprisingly companionable, and Braele appreciated that she wasn't being made to feel like she was intruding—because she was acutely aware herself she was doing just that. It was quite pleasant. Braele had often found that her own silence had a tendency to make people, if not quite nervous, then certainly anxious to make up for it, and while she often found it entertaining to hear the babbled thoughts of her peers, companionable quiet was a welcome surprise.

Lounging on the beach. Braele's lips quirked into a smile, amused at the phrasing—and the categorization. She quite doubted she'd ever been termed a damsel before. It was difficult to surprise her, and even more to hit the right notes on her strange, dry sense of humor. Nadya had done so. and Braele decided she liked this woman. She snorted, an entirely undelicate sound, at the comment on her nocturnal dexterity. "I'll work on it." She said solemnly, though the glitter in her eyes suggested that perhaps not as seriously as the tone implied.

Hearing footsteps, the tall young woman glanced to the side, and noted a healer heading their way with the intent of someone who had been summoned. Her dark cheeks turned a shade deeper, reminded again that she was being troublesome. She detested being dependent.

The curly-haired healer practically bounced his way over, yammering with what Braele personally considered to be completely undue cheer for the hour. He beamed at Nadya, “Howdy-do, Pridesecond Nadya! Lovely night for a seaside stroll, isn't it? Or a swim, if you're a little one—HALLO THERE—" That was directed to the boy in the waves, but T'yer continued on without so much as a pause, already flopped on his knees and investigating Braele's ankle as he rambled, “Me? Water's gotta be a bit warmer. Grew up in a seahold. you'd think I'd be hardier! Golly, you really messed this up, didn't ya? “ The last was to Braele, and her eyebrows raised at the fairly tactless delivery, but T'yer's stream of babble disappeared into a slightly off-key hum as he wrapped the limb quickly and efficiently. We’ll get it managed, no worries. He hopped up, and, in his characteristic way of forgetting to ask permission before invading personal space, looped one of Braele's arms over his shoulders and heaved, so most of her weight was on him. He was tall, but she was even taller, and he frowned slightly, then tilted his head at Nadya. “Could we borrow Nadysk?” It would be safer that way, if the injured candidate were to be flanked by the strong wher. Without really waiting for an answer—he'd manage either way—the boy beamed blissfully at both women. “Have a lovely day! Er. Night! C'mon, then." He turned to leave, and Braele hopped with him, not sure how she quite felt about this development, but she did turn to lift a hand in a gesture of thanks to Nadya and the boy in the waves. "Reinforcements have arriveD.” She murmured dryly, "I’ll stop by about that favor. Thank you again."

[Kila]

Braele's snort of amusement tickled Nadya and she smiled freely
at the ocean. What in intriguing person her bonded had brought to her.
It wasn't in her nature to really like people, but she was beginning to
like Braele in spite of it. The Candidate's similarly dry comments and
suggestive sense of humor (when she was not sitting in easy silence)
commended her without effort. She fancied that they were so relaxed
because neither of them were really trying, yet somehow succeeding
fantastically.

Nadya was annoyed with T'yer from the moment she heard his footsteps.
Turning at the same time as Braele, her lips twitched ever so slightly
at the sight of him bouncing towards them. Nadysk, what sort of
person have you afflicted me with now? she asked, seeing the Brown
trailing behind. Healer, Nadysk said, unabashed.
Nadya frowned. I like the first one better. She said little as
T'yer blathered on, spitting out enough words for the three of them. His
chattering shattered the delicate mood of the night, but she did at
least return his greeting. When Aydan heard the shout in his direction
he looked up with the same sort of disinterest he had shown for Braele.
No Wher, no dragon, no pets. Boring. He went back to his play.

"Reinforcements indeed," Nadya said when T'yer fell upon her and
then struggled to pull her up. Nadysk melted out of the darkness at
their side unbidden, Nadya's permission not necessary. He looked up at
Braele with luminescent eyes and bumped her arm with his snout gently.
Braele ride on Nadysk's back. It was a suggestion,
but it did not really sound like one. When he was in mother hen mood
there were no arguments. He knelt on the ground as he had before and
allowed T'yer to help her onto his back. It would be quicker and more
comfortable for her that way.

Though irritated that her interesting new companion was being taken
away, Nadya did not protest; Braele needed to go to the infirmary. She
had refused to take the girl, so she could not reasonably be angry when
someone else came to do the job. "Yes, do stop by," she agreed
when Braele said her farewells. Nadya thought she would very much like
to see the girl in her room. She could think of a few ways that she
could pay her back if she was so insistent on a favor in return. Those
thoughts aside, she was pleased when she was left alone. The night was
even better with that surprisingly pleasant interruption.